Shadowborn (Light & Shadow, Book 1) (32 page)

“
He recognized me,” I said
later that night. The maidens had been commanded to retire early,
and so Miriel had gone back to her rooms to practice her smiles and
dancing and then, when her maidservant left on an errand, to take
out the book I had gotten her and keep reading it. She was nearly
all of the way through it, and I did not like the enraptured look
on her face when she read it. If I had hoped she would disagree
with the writings of the rebels, and that would be the end of her
interest, I had been wrong. I was trying to distract her, but I saw
now that my efforts had been in vain.

“
So?” Her tone was light
and impersonal. For the past days, Miriel had behaved as if I were
a guest in her rooms, a temporary visitor to be treated
courteously, neither friend nor foe.

Her question was easily enough answered by
her own intelligence, so I did not respond to it. I only stripped
down to my linen and pulled on a pair of loose pants. At Temar’s
insistence, I wore pants and a shirt to sleep in, not a nightshirt,
as others did. Too difficult to move in, he said, and he had also
insisted that all of Miriel’s nightgowns be cut with wide hems, so
that she could run in them if necessary.

“
Do you’ll think he’ll try
to contact you?” I asked curiously. I thought the King would not be
satisfied for long with a glimpse of her face and a few moments in
her company.

She behaved as if I had not said anything,
and I cursed myself again for my foolish words in our argument. Now
openly doubting my loyalty to her, Miriel shared no secret glances
with me at remarks we heard in the halls, she did not make
confident predictions of the course of events, she did not even
practice at night in the same room as I did. If I studied in the
main room, she would go to her bedchamber. I no longer saw her
practice a head tilt or a smile. She might have been learning to
throw my daggers, for all I knew.

“
I heard from the serving
girl today,” I said, making another attempt to bridge the chasm
between us. It felt like using silk thread to build a bridge for an
army. “She said they’ve been told to expect the envoy a day before
the winter festival.”

“
I see.” The news might
have been nothing at all to do with her, instead of the largest
political event of the decade. I thought for a moment, and then
tried another tactic.

“
I wonder if they’ll use
Voltur pass,” I said. “I should think they’d be in the mountains
now, if they’re to arrive in two weeks’ time.”

Just for a moment, she was caught off guard.
The walls came down behind her eyes quickly enough, but I had seen
a longing for home, a wish to be far away from the court where she
was so successful and so favored. Even now, when Miriel had the
King himself ensnared, I thought that she would give it all up to
see the mountains again, and have an embrace from her mother.

It was the first reason she had ever given
me to be loyal to her, and I could not find the words to tell her
so. And so we went to sleep in the same silence that filled all of
our nights now, and I lay awake for a very long time, staring at
the ceiling and wishing I could find a way to make things right
once more.

The next day, Temar told me that the envoy’s
party would arrive just before the winter festival, and I nodded as
if this was new information. We were practicing in the early
morning dark, not in our abandoned cellar room but instead outside,
in one of the practice courts the soldiers used. Temar was
insistent that I be able to fight in the cold, in the heat, in the
dark, on uneven ground.

“
You knew how to compensate
for this,” he would say sharply, as he knocked me to the ground or
laid the fake knife to my throat. “And yet you focused on it
instead of on the fight. Now, you’re dead, and Miriel is dead.” He
always ended his admonishments with that phrase, and I was learning
to hate it.

“
Again,” he said now,
seeing that I was still stretching my left leg. He had thrown me
from the ground, and my hip was sore. “We need to finish this. The
Duke wishes to meet with us before the Council meeting.”

I duly launched myself from the ground,
driving my shoulder into his thighs. I heard his grunt as he hit
the ground and then I was on top of him, scrabbling for his neck
while he held me away from him easily, his longer arms pushing me
back. I leaned back out of the reach of his fingers, and he took
the opportunity to roll forwards and pin me.

“
Are they presenting the
ladies at the banquet?” I asked, my face squished into the ground.
I wiggled my fingers to signal a yield, and sighed with relief when
he released my arm.

“
Yes.” I had rolled to my
feet, and he used the same throw to take me down again. I rolled so
that my right leg was free for a kick, and he nodded approvingly.
“Good. Again.”

“
How is Miriel?” he asked a
few moments later, as we toweled off. “Her lessons are going
well?”

I nodded. It was easy to be honest with
Temar when things were going so poorly with Miriel. It was a bitter
irony to me that I had once worked to pretend that there was no
friendship between myself and Miriel, so as not to give the Duke
cause for alarm. Now, gods knew, there was no need to pretend.

“
She is as she always is,”
I said wearily. “Best at everything. She speaks of the King’s
marriage only when others bring it up. She dresses modestly, very
few jewels—nothing cheap,” I added, at Temar’s raised eyebrow. “No
especial friends, although there are those who seek her out.
Elizabeth Cessor, Katherine Norcross, Linnea Torstensson. It does
not please Marie de la Marque, but Miriel does not encourage
it.”

Temar nodded. It had been a delicate
business, courting the favor of the maidens without disturbing the
balance of power within the group, and no one could have managed it
forever. The trick in any group, Temar had explained, was to get as
close as possible to one’s target before anyone noticed your aim.
For better or worse, Marie de la Marque now knew Miriel to be a
rival, at least for the friendship of the girls, and perhaps for
the favor of the King.

“
Keep me informed,” he said
briefly, and I nodded without hesitation. Each time I nodded, I
marveled at the pang I felt. How should it be that I felt disloyal
no matter what I did? Every night before falling asleep, I
practiced saying a version of the day’s events that was close
enough to the truth to be checked by anyone else Temar might speak
to, and yet carefully edited to remove anything pointing to
Miriel’s own motives or emotions.

Yet even knowing that I was helping Miriel
by providing a steady stream of harmless information to Temar—and
thus, the Duke—I still felt guilty. Nothing secret was divulged,
and still I felt as if I should have asked her permission first.
And even as I felt that I was betraying Miriel by telling Temar too
much, felt that I was betraying him by telling too little.

We were walking slowly, stretching our
muscles, when we heard the sound of shouting from the Duke’s
chambers: the Duke’s voice, and Miriel’s. Temar and I exchanged one
anguished glance, and started running.

Chapter 27

Miriel’s voice, shrill with anger, and the
Duke’s snarl, were loud enough to be heard from the main hallway.
Temar and I could hear the fight even as we ran through the main
room, and as we pushed our way into the study, I froze for a moment
at the tableau: the Duke roaring his anger, and Miriel facing into
it with a determined scowl.

“—
waste an opportunity like
that!” The Duke’s hand slammed down on his desk, and Miriel jumped
slightly. Silently, I took my place at her side. I knew that she
had no wish for my companionship, and yet in the face of the Duke’s
anger, I found that I wanted nothing more than to help her. She
swallowed, unsure of herself; I was not certain that she had even
noticed my arrival.

“
Sir—you had
said—“

“
Not a word.” He cut her
off and turned his furious gaze on me, and I tried not to shrink
away. “What do you think, shadow? Has she squandered her
opportunity with the King? The opening she saw, and took?” He
repeated her words mockingly, and I saw Miriel bite her
lip.

“
My Lord, I believe he is
quite taken with her,” I said honestly. “I believe he did not speak
to her further because of his mother’s presence.” I saw Miriel’s
head start to turn, as if she thought to look at me, but she
changed her mind and looked back at the floor.

“
Huh.” The Duke had not
expected this; it distracted him from his anger for a moment. “That
is the truth?”

“
It is, my Lord.” Conscious
of his scrutiny, and Temar’s, I bit my lip on the words that Miriel
knew how to play this as only a woman could. She could do by
instinct what the Duke tried to do with logic. I could not say
that, but I added, “He is afraid of how the girls act towards him,
but with Miriel, it is the other way around—he thinks she is afraid
of him.”

The Duke was intrigued despite himself. “You
do not think he will forget her?”

I shook my head, trying to appear confident
enough to shield Miriel, but not so confident that he wondered what
else there might be to the story. “No, my Lord. He sought her out,
and still she retreated. He will be wondering why, I think.”

The Duke turned his gaze on Miriel, and she
dropped her own eyes. He watched her for a long moment.

“
All the maidens are to be
presented to the King at the Winter Festival,” he said at last.
“You will contrive to say something interesting to him when you
dance together.”

Miriel’s head came up at that. “We’re to
dance?” she asked.

“
I expect him to dance with
some of the maidens. And as your shadow is so confident of his
attraction to you—“ he showed his wintry smile “—you will be one of
those girls.” The threat in his voice was clear, but he continued
to speak. He always underestimated her intelligence. “If Catwin is
correct, we will know it in a week’s time. If she is not…we will
need to discuss the behavior used to attract a man, and why you,
with a fortune in training, cannot accomplish that one
thing.

“
Now. Show me your curtsy
to a diplomat.” The speed of the change was jarring to me, but
Miriel swept a curtsy without hesitation. It was deep, as deep a
curtsy as she would show to a duke, but not quite so deep as to
royalty. As she did everything—save, perhaps, being pleasant to the
Duke—she did it perfectly.

“
If circumstance brings you
close to the envoy, you are to be as bland as possible,” the Duke
said. “We have all seen how bland you can be, so I shall assume you
will have no trouble with this.” Miriel said nothing, but her color
rose. “If anyone asks, you are desirous of peace and are pleased
that the envoy is here.

“
One more thing—you will
give every appearance of enjoying the banquet, but you will not
appear awed by it. We need no reminders of your provincial
upbringing.

“
You
,” he said to me, “will stay as close to her side as
possible. Do not let anyone draw her away from the crowd. You will
watch that no one puts food on her plate or wine in her cup without
first serving another. You will teach her a signal to warn her of
such dangers without alerting others. Take note of those servants
who do such things, and find them after the meal. Do not engage
them yourself if it can be avoided; bring their names to Temar, and
he will do the rest.”

“
Sir—my Lord—is there
another plot I should know about?” My heart was pounding. Every
time we spoke of this, I fought my own sense of the ridiculous. It
was undeniable that I was here at the palace, being trained to be
an assassin and a bodyguard, but it was undeniable, as well, that I
had killed a man who was trying to poison Miriel and leave her for
dead.

And yet—and yet. Since the assassination
attempt, I found myself thinking every day that I might wake up and
find that all of this had been a dream. It did not seem possible
that the stakes should be so high, not for the rebels and not for
the courtiers, whatever the money and power to be played for.
Whenever the Duke spoke of Miriel’s would-be killers, my heart
turned over as if I was hearing of this for the first time.

“
None that I know of,” the
Duke admitted. “It’s early yet for the courtiers to see her as a
threat. But in the confusion, anything could happen. And it would
be clever to kill her before there was a clear motive.” His eyes
narrowed. “Or Jacces might make another attempt.” Miriel swayed
slightly, and before I could stop myself, I reach out to steady
her. She was as white as snow at this casual discussion of her
murder.

“
I won’t—“ I said, and
broke off as I saw Temar and the Duke watching us, sharp-eyed. I
drew back slightly. “
We
will not let any harm come to you. My Lady.” She
nodded mechanically, but the look in her eyes said that she doubted
our ability to protect her. I looked at her, wanting to ask if she
was alright, and yet not wanting to voice the words in front of our
audience.

“
There will be new dances
taught on the night of the banquet,” the Duke resumed, as if
nothing had occurred. “Your instructor knows them, and he will show
them to you tomorrow. You are to know them perfectly.”

The irritation was back in Miriel’s eyes. I
could see her wanting to retort that she knew her duty, and she did
it. She always learned her dances perfectly. But she held her
tongue, as she always managed to do, and we left. I sighed with
relief to be away from the Duke’s scrutiny, but Miriel did not
relax. She broke into a run as soon as we were out of sight, and I
ran after her.